Your Child’s (Mis)behaviour Isn’t a Personal Attack on You

Four-year-old Aditi is crying loudly and throwing tantrums in a shop because her father said he can’t buy her a toy she is asking for. Shravan, a fifteen-year-old, shuts the door on his mother’s face because she said he can’t go out for a late-night party with his friends. Seven-year-old Shruthi is adamant that she won’t learn dance from her mother for an upcoming performance. Aditi’s father, Shravan’s mother and Shruthi’s mother all have the same question: “Why is my child behaving hurtfully with me and making life so hard for me?”

Instances like these may be familiar to many of us. As parents or caregivers of children (be it four- or fourteen-year-olds), we may often encounter words or actions from our children that we find hurtful. When we face such situations with our child, we may invariably think that our child is hurting us personally, and intentionally so, with their behaviour. We may even believe that our child is being “manipulative” or “attention-seeking” or “purposely defiant”, and say things like, “My child is being manipulative and making life so hard for me as a parent,” or “My child is doing all this intentionally to seek my attention” and so on.

Now, let’s rewind and go back in time to when your child was an infant. As a baby, your child would have kicked you on your face innumerable times and you wouldn’t have taken it personally at all. In other words, when our children were infants, we wouldn’t have attributed an ill-intention to their act of kicking. Truth be told, we may have actually felt delighted with our child’s gesture and enjoyed the same. But for some of us, the moment our child’s language developed and they began speaking and articulating, the feeling that they are hurting us personally through their words/actions begins to haunt us.

So essentially, we let the perspective we had about our child’s gestures as an infant change as they grow older. As parents, however, it is important that we try and not let this shift happen. It is essential for parents to understand that, in most cases, a child’s words or actions, even though they may be hurtful, are more information about an unmet need of theirs, rather than something that is done to hurt you or make your life miserable.

When you take your child’s behaviour personally, you are actually focusing on their motive, rather than on their unmet need, to address the situation. When you see their words or actions as intentionally meant to hurt you, it makes it very difficult for you to respond to them in a way that will help them grow and thrive.

So, here are two important reasons why you should avoid taking your child’s hurtful behaviour personally:

1. Doing so can help increase your parental capacity – you tend to become less agitated, angry, or irritated.

2. Doing so can help you actually solve the problem at hand by enabling you to work from a place of connection.

It is completely understandable that not taking things personally is very hard – it takes tremendous discipline from one’s part as a parent to do it. So, here are some steps that can help you change your perspective and handle the situation from a place of connection, instead of taking your child’s words or actions personally.

1. Tell yourself repeatedly, “It’s not about me. It’s about my child.” Whenever you get the feeling that your child is giving you a tough time with their challenging behaviour, remind yourself again and again that “it’s not about me, it’s about my child.”

2. Don’t assume, judge or conclude on your child’s motive. Instead, carefully observe what happened and ask them questions.

3. Ascertain the unmet need that is driving your child’s behaviour. Once you have observed and gathered information, you will get a good idea of the unmet need that drove your child to act the way they did. Determining this unresolved need of your child will help you take the required action. It can also make handling the challenging situation a lot easier.

4. Take action collaboratively. After you have ascertained what your child’s need is, you can work with them on the required action – this could be a simple request to the child or a series of steps you could work on together.

To understand the steps outlined above better, let’s go back to the examples we discussed at the beginning of this blog.

First, let’s take the case of Aditi, the four-year-old, who throws tantrums at a shop because her father refused to buy her the toy she wanted. Now, suppose her father thinks that his daughter is being manipulative, he would get annoyed and agitated; he would possibly shout at his child, judge her and call her a ‘drama queen’. However, if Aditi’s father steps back a little and doesn’t take his daughter’s tantrum personally, and tells himself, “it’s not about me, it’s about my child,” he won’t feel agitated and will be fully available and present for his daughter, while she expresses her sadness. He will be more understanding about his child’s feelings and will have a lot more capacity to address what she is going through. In this case, he could take Aditi to a corner in the shop and work things out with her.

The second example is that of Shravan, the teenager who shuts the door on his mother’s face because she refused to let him go for a late-night party with his friends. Shravan’s mother could grow frustrated and think that her son is behaving like a brat with her and say, “He is just making life so hard for me.” She could even imagine many mean motives behind his hurtful behaviour. However, instead of taking it personally, if she tells herself, “It’s not about me, it’s about him,” she will grow calm. She can then give her son the time to cool down and later, engage with him in a conversation. Listening to him with a mindset to observe his point of view, she will be able to gather information on why going to the party is important for him – it could perhaps be his need to belong to a group of friends, especially after he had been excluded earlier. So when she gets to know of Shravan’s unmet need, she may perhaps change her decision. Or during the course of their conversation, she could point out to him the concerns she has around security at such parties and help him understand her stance. Either way, the key thing here is that the mother and son get to work collaboratively on the way forward.

The last example we will look at is that of seven-year-old Shruthi, who is adamant that she won’t learn dance from her mother for an upcoming performance. Shruthi tells her mother, a talented dancer herself, “I don’t want to learn this dance from you.” She further adds, “I don’t like it at all that you are making me do the same step again and again!” Now suppose her mother takes her daughter’s actions and words personally. She would think, “As a dancer, I know what I am teaching her, and she is making life so difficult for me.” She would possibly judge her child and assume other motives like, “She just wants to laze around and doesn’t want to work hard.” If instead, Shruthi’s mother doesn’t take her daughter’s retort personally and repeatedly tells herself, “It’s not about me. It’s about my child,” and doesn’t assume or unnecessarily conclude on her daughter’s motives, her parental capacity will increase manifold. She can then have a detailed conversation with Shruthi and make observations about what made her daughter behave that way. By doing so, she may possibly discover that Shruthi is actually anxious about the performance and she doesn’t want to let her mother down by performing badly after learning from her. Connecting with her daughter this way, Shruthi’s mother can understand her child’s actual feelings and comfort her. She can tell her daughter not to worry and that her dance will turn out fine.

As seen from the examples above, the bottom line is to just turn around the narrative you tell yourself as a parent; rather than saying that your child is ‘attention-seeking’, say that your child is ‘connection-seeking’. This can do wonders to the equation you share with your child.

However, if you find yourself repeatedly taking your child’s challenging behaviour personally, try asking yourself why it makes you think so. See if it indicates some unprocessed emotional baggage within you that needs to be addressed. If it does, taking self-care measures can be helpful in processing your triggers independently.

To reiterate, please remember that your child’s actions or words are not a personal attack on you. More often than not, it is a communication of an unmet need they have and, the more we realise this as parents, the more we can interact with them from a place of “It’s not about me, it’s about you, and I am here to help you thrive.” When we do so, it enhances our relationship with our child enormously, and we will be able to build this precious bond without stressing ourselves too much and with a lot of capacity in our minds.

(Edited by Anupama Krishnakumar)

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